


portrait of an angry jaybirb

by Cerusee



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, JASON TODD WAS HERE, Low-key Feels, batfamily, if you will recall that's also canon, jason feels left out, jason is such a drama queen, revenge portraiture, wait I think that's canon isn't it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 17:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10141241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/pseuds/Cerusee
Summary: Looking at the family portrait he's not in pisses Jason off.  So he decides to do something about it.





	

Bruce is pleasant. He smiles at the painter. 

The boys are trying, he thinks. He thinks Damian is going to explode soon. They’ve been posing all afternoon, and every single person in this room hates it. Bruce hopes Dick can keep a hand on Damian before he loses it. Dick knows his youngest better than Bruce does. 

Tim is a statue, and that worries Bruce too.

He doesn’t let himself think about what isn’t.

 

Jason stares at the portrait, rage bubbling up in his gut. A portrait. A _painting_. They’d _sat_ for it, all four of them. Hours and hours. His perfect holiness, the replacement, that little shit, everything, all of them, everyone Bruce liked better, posed for hours. Everyone Bruce preferred, everyone he trusted more. His perfect family, everyone besides Jason.

He wants to manage a _fuck you Bruce_ on the way out, and he can’t.

 

It’s a week later, and he’s right outside of the Sears portrait studio, jeans and leather jacket and feeling like a complete moron. He has his domino in his pocket. He has a destructive impulse to put it on before he goes inside. He ignores it.

The photographer chatters at him. He tries to listen, and fails. He wants to be there, but he’s not. She poses him—somehow she does it without touching him, he’s grateful—and the picture looks okay. It looks good. He looks…

He’s a grownup. The fuck. He’s a fucking grownup in his stupid fucking jeans and jacket. Looking at the portrait takes his breath away. _When did this happen?_ The pit, he thinks. But no, it wasn’t the pit, it was time. All the time he lost. He grew up when he wasn’t _even there_ , and it’s gone, he can’t ever have that time back again. It’s gone. Everything is gone. Everything is…

The picture. Why did he have that stupid picture taken?

 

He has it framed. He splurges, and gets it done nice. Okay, he’s feeling a little manic, but he wants to do this right, make it land.

He doesn’t break into the Manor, he doesn’t need to. He’s on Alfred’s guest list. He does sneak in, though, not wanting to advertise himself. This is a _surprise_. He doesn’t want to draw attention when he hops up on top of the front-hall credenza, while he yanks paintings off the wall, tosses them to the tiled floor, while he hammers in a new wall-hanger and places it. Just. Right. Perfectly centered, unmistakeable, impossible to ignore.

He jumps down, examines his handiwork, and smiles. _Fuck you, Bruce._ Forget-me-not. _Ignore me now, asshole._

 

Dick is passing through the front hall when he sees it: a giant photograph—it has to be three feet diagonal at least—of an adult Jason, in costume, minus the domino and the hood, hung neatly in the front hall, over the credenza.

He’s still slightly in shock when Tim comes up behind him, and chokes, “Is that…how—Jason?”

And oh god, there’s Bruce in the hallway. Dick and Tim are frozen in horror, watching Bruce approach, seeing him turn his head up and see the portrait, watching him look at his dead-but-living child.

Bruce stares wordlessly, unfathomably, at the portrait of Jason, for moments that tick into eternity.

“Does that look crooked to you?” he finally asks them.

Dick and Tim are both briefly frozen with horror. 

“Alfred has a level somewhere, could you…?” Bruce says to Tim. 

Tim flees.

“I think it looks good, “ Bruce tells Dick. 

Dick exhales.

 

Jason comes by, two months later, with a thumb drive’s worth of intel on a Metropolis-based human trafficking ring. He enters via the Cave, on Bruce’s sufference, but he exits via the Manor’s front door—or almost does—on Alfred’s. He’s half on his way out when he sees the picture— _his_ picture—bold and stupid and _still there_ , and he stops and just _laughs_. It’s still there, and it’s stupid, but _it’s still there_.

Why?

It can’t be guilt? That would be a stupid way to be guilty. Wouldn’t it?

He’s still standing there, staring up at his handiwork, when Alfred comes into the room, and looks up at the portrait, placing his hand on Jason’s shoulder.

Jason chokes, “It was a joke, Alf. I was just being an asshole.”

Alfred squeezes Jason’s shoulder. “I know, Master Jason.” He slides his hand up to stroke Jason’s hair. “I know.”

 

Bruce didn’t mean to watch it. He was on his way to bed. But there is Jason, in the hallway, doubled over laughing, and Alfred, stooped a little, touching Jason’s back.

Bruce smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> [This is 100% Lysical's fault.](http://cerusee.tumblr.com/post/158010036887/lysical-was-the-portrait-a-christmas-gift-that)


End file.
